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Customs and duty payments

Modified on: Thu, 15 Oct, 2015 at 10:58 AM

Customs and duty payments can vary from country to country. The information below should give you an idea of what to expect when your Laserlight is sent to your home country, but please do feed back on your experiences.

UK AND EU

This duty should be covered - it is paid in advance by us when the item has been dispatched. Therefore, there is nothing further to pay on receipt. If you are asked to pay duty by the shipper, then please do contact us immediately. Courier companies work to strict deadlines, so if a package is not dealt with within the required time, it will be abandoned.

THE USA

The USA has an import limit of $200. Goods under this limit will be exempt from any duty payments. If you are indeed asked to pay duty, then it could be that you're over your personal import allowance. In which case, do contact us straight away.

CANADA

Packages sent to Canada will incur a Customs charge on anything over $20 CAD, which unfortunately we're not able to do anything about. Duty rates and sales tax vary by state, but from experience the combined duty payments for a Laserlight tend to be around $30 CAD including brokerage fees. Often, the courier will not release the package until this bill is paid, so contact us immediately if you encounter any trouble with this.

The range for GST and HST taxes totals between 13% and 15% and will depend on the end address of each shipment. Each province charges a different % so a product shipping to Ontario will have an added cost of 13% total whereas British Columbia would be 12%. Here is a complete table of rates showing the variances by province. Based on population density, 13.5% would be about average.

Province

Type

PST (%)

GST (%)

HST (%)

Total tax rate

Alberta

GST

5%

5%

British Columbia

GST & PST

7%

5%

12%

Manitoba

GST & PST

7%

5%

12%

New Brunswick

HST

13%

13%

Newfoundland and Labrador

HST

13%

13%

Northwest Territories

GST

5%

5%

Nova Scotia

HST

15%

15%

Nunavut

GST

5%

5%

Ontario

HST

13%

13%

Prince Edward Island

HST

14%

14%

Quebec

GST & QST*

*9.9755%

14.975%

Saskatchewan

GST & PST

5%

5%

10%

Yukon

GST

5%

5%

We ship from Hong Kong directly to Canada using UPS, and the courier will pay for the tax when the goods enter the country. They will then seek to recover the payment upon delivery or collection. To enable this to happen, they will typically add a brokerage fee of their own onto the tax. As with the tax, this will vary, but it will typically be between $10 and $15 CAD.

RUSSIA

It is difficult for our shippers to calculate the exact duty charge to Russia as it depends on a number of variables, but as a reference point it is around 20%.

REST OF THE WORLD

Please do drop us a line with any individual queries and we'll do our best to estimate any duty payments wherever they may occur.